Design and characterization of the CoReH2O Ku-band multi-feed antenna

In 2009, Astrium GmbH, RuagSpaceAB and ComDev Europe have been charged by ESA for a Ku-band antenna feed bread-board (B/B) activity. The scope of the activity is to establish sufficient technology readiness for the Ku-band part of the dual-band (X- and Ku-band) and dual-polarized CoReH2O (COld REgions Hydrology High-resolution Observatory) ScanSAR instrument. The low-cost feed system is proposed in this paper based on the multi-feed antenna (MFA) concept. The design, the simulated and measured performance are presented. The measurements of the prototype show very good matching with the simulations, which confirm high performance of the device and its ability of fast beam scan in elevation.